The Union of the Muslims of Russia (Ittifaq, short for , Ittifaq âl-Möslimin and , Ittifaq al-Muslimin) was a political organisation and party of Muslims in the late Russian Empire. The organisation was founded during the 1905 Revolution and came to an end after the February Revolution. Its political agenda was liberal-constitutional, closely aligned to that of the Kadet Party; the Islamic reform movement of Jadidism was an important influence. The Ittifaq was dominated by Volga Tatar intellectuals, but also included Muslim representatives of other ethnicities such as North Caucasians, Azeris, Crimean Tatars, Caucasusians and Central Asians. Background Islam in Russia before 1905 According to official statistics, the Russian Empire had 14 million Muslim subjects around 1900; Muslim Duma representatives even claimed a number as high as 30 million. The core of the Muslim population was located around Kazan, which had been conquered by Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century. Other areas with significant Muslim populations were the Crimea, Azerbaijan, Caucasus and Central Asia. Periods of toleration and repression alternated. Under Ivan, noble Muslims were allowed to keep their titles and their Russian serfs, while the middle part of the 18th century saw the destruction of 418 of Kazan's 536 mosques. Catherine II followed the different strategy of promoting a new Muslim clerical structure, especially the Orenburg Muslim Spiritual Assembly, to strengthen Russian rule over Khazakhstan and other Muslim communities. The conquest of Central Asia in the latter half of the 19. century had seen Muslim leaders call for Jihads against the Russian soldiers. Together with imperialist and social darwinist influences from Western Europe, this created a new picture of Central Asian Muslims as "fanatics" beyond rational discourse; this also reflected on Russian attitude towards "older" Muslim populations, for example in Kazan. Islam became an object of study in the new subject of Orientalism (Vostokovediene). Under Nikolay Ilminsky, the Russian administration started opening schools in Kazan in which the Tatar language was only taught in the first four years, while Russian was taught all through the curriculum. The desired effect was for "backwards" Muslim culture to "die out" over time without provoking a "fanatical" answer. Jadidism On April 22, 1883, the newspaper Terciman ("Interpreter") was published for the first time in the Crimean town of Bakhchysarai. Its publisher, Ismail Gaspirali, became the ideological forerunner of the Jadid movement. This movement was more than a response to the expansion of